The decontaminating of contaminated material can be very difficult. This is especially the case with respect to the decommissioning of chemical weapons carrying chemical warfare agents. The principal problem in this regard is how to safely remove, neutralize and dispose of the extremely toxic chemical warfare agents used in such chemical weapons. Modern technology has become increasingly successful in the neutralization of these chemical warfare agents—once the agents have been removed from the chemical weapon housing. However, after the bulk of the chemical warfare agents have been removed from the chemical weapons housings, the housings and their various components typically remain contaminated with residual amounts of the chemical warfare agents. The decontamination of these chemical weapon components remains a difficult problem.
Most prior art methods for decontaminating chemical weapon components have employed a two-step process. In a first step, the components are subjected to liquid chemicals or to high temperatures to remove and decompose essentially all of the chemical warfare agents adhering to the chemical weapon components. In a second step, residual vapors from the first step are incinerated to eliminate any and all residual chemical warfare agents in those vapors.
The incineration step has now been questioned, however, as possibly allowing potentially toxic combustion products to be released to the atmosphere. Accordingly, the incineration step has been banned in many industrial countries, including in the United States.
In our earlier filed patent application, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,462,249, we disclosed a method of decontaminating chemical weapon components without use of an incineration step. The method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,462,249, however, required that the exhaust gases from the method be treated catalytically with oxygen. This is an expensive step.
Thus, there is a need for a new method of decontaminating chemical weapon components which completely eliminates all traces of chemical warfare agents in an efficient and inexpensive manner, and without the use of an incineration step and without the use of a catalyzed oxygenation step.